It's really quite weird. My regular right-leaning readers keep seeing me as secretly devoted to Obama, no matter what mockery I indulge in. They think I'm just trying to trick them into thinking I've got what I like to call cruel neutrality. And yet the left-leaning readers assume I loathe Obama.

What's so annoying about this is that I want to write things that are fresh and surprising. And seeming to be both for and against Obama should work for that end, and yet it doesn't, because everyone seems to assume I'm on the side that they are not. They think I'm predictable — but which way?

Oh, maybe I should be the opposite of annoyed. Pleased. Because I'm not giving anybody what they want, and yet people — some people, who are they? — keep reading. To be denied what you want and still want more from that source... I'm going to be happy to be that source.

Because you voted for him in 2008 despite knowing what he'd do to the country. While McCain wasn't a huge improvement he was still a better choice. But you decided to vote for a man who had the most radically left wing vote in the senate, rather than a proven moderate.

Well, let's just say that a few some certain commenters here, of both political leanings, are hyper-obsessed with reading between the lines of Ann's every utterance. Such people might want to, oh, I don't know... get a life? Who she votes for is her business, and if she doesn't make up her mind until the last second, hey, she's in good company there.

Keep in mind that the regular commenters here are a very small slice of your readership. Regular commenters—on any blog, in any forum—tend to be somewhat ... different. Most people (like me, of course!) who read your blog with some regularity do so in part because your observations can be surprising.

The post that sparked your comment was without any arguement or substance. It is simply an insinuation.

I think most of us here find lines of attack, whether left or right, to be pretty boring and unimaginative. We aren't here to agree or disagree with you or need you to be on our particular side of an issue.

I think most of us here like how you spark a conversation that takes on a life of its own and doesn't revolve around what you necessarily think or even needs your input to continue. This blog is the catalyist of and not the substance of the conversation.

You Professor, seem to be willing to listen to rants from the good, the bad and the ugly Conservatives, and yet you don't pander to them any more than you pander to the liberals.

The liberals probably watch to see you walk that tight wire with creative verbal moves.

The great question is whether as a feminist you can ever be seen as a conservative. I say you can because the two together conserve womens' valuable skills which we all need whether we admit it or not.

I don't know that I see you as secretly devoted to Obama. Willingly gulled the first time, yes. But I'd like to think that the last three years of blue-state, overreaching, overspending government has sobered you a tad. And frankly, given what you know about Obama - his temperament, his work ethic, his knowledge, his circle (all things obvious to those who bothered to look in 2008) - I can't imagine you voting for this vapid poseur again.

I'm with Tosa Guy on this. While I confess to some curiosity, I don't particularly care for whom you vote. Honestly, when I first came to this blog, back in the day, I assumed that you, a law professor especially at Madison, would be a typical lefty law professor. In fact, I likely put off reading the blog for awhile because I assumed it would be the same old boring lefty stuff. This is a very interesting blog, and your political opinions or votes are part of that, but really, there's a lot more to it. Vote for Ron Paul for all I care, or Dennis Kucinich. Just don't be boring about it!

More like Clueless! Sometimes, you just seem like you don't have a clue what is going on as in what went on in Primary 2008 (case in point your other post today on immigration). You are just a shallow observer who goes after both sides just for the heck of it. You are playing with your readers. But that is OK. You still give us an interesting nugget here and there that we come back. Don't flatter yourself too much about your in-depth anything. But that is OK too -- this is not your day job.

I don't think you're "secretly devoted" to Obama. I do fear that when you are ultimately faced with the actual ballot, you will exhibit the same poor judgement you showed in 2008. I believe the lure of the hip, historic Obama is just too strong for you to resist.

National sports announcers also experience this dynamic. They broadcast a game to a national audience not caring who wins. They are just pros doing a game and BOTH teams fans will text and email them that they're rooting for the "other" team. It's simply a characteristic of partisanship, no matter the venue. These broadcasters are too vexed by this but there's no solution. So "woman up" and embrace the fact that this is just the way it works.

Until you actually cast your vote against Barackula this fall (and even at that I have to take you at your word, I have no other proof)I will fairly or unfairly lump you into an updated version of MODO: the scorned woman who berates her fallen hero, BO, (Or as MODO did in the 1990s, Clinton) and then at the last minute says "Never mind! I will stand with him to the end!" That is what I see coming, I hope I am wrong but you never know.

Ann, You are interesting precisely because, although I read you as center left (based on voting history and take on social issues), your observations often cross political lines. Principle over party is attractive. The other reason this blog holds interest is because it's a relatively polite mix of left and right rather than the closed circle of admirers too many blogs create.

After three years of progressive democrats running the country there aren't any really undecided voters. Only those that live or depend on big government and everyone else. The election will turn on wich side is jazzed up enough or depressed enough to show up and or stay home. On thing for sure is that the vote fraud will be massive in favor of the democrats.

Ann's blog is interesting precisely because she isn't a boring predictable lefty.

It doesn't matter what Althouse says, it matters what she does. She was supposedly cruelly neutral in the last race but eventually posted a ridiculous entry of how McCain lost her and how perfectly justified she would be to vote for Obama. Since casting that vote, she's made laughable attempts at justifying her vote, never once, to my knowledge, admitting her mistake.

In the months to come, you can expect a blog entry of how Romney will have lost her and Obama once again is the logical choice.

What's predictable about Althouse is that she thinks her "cruel neutrality" covers her predictability.

It doesn't matter what Althouse says, it matters what she does. She was supposedly cruelly neutral in the last race but eventually posted a ridiculous entry of how McCain lost her and how perfectly justified she would be to vote for Obama. Since casting that vote, she's made laughable attempts at justifying her vote, never once, to my knowledge, admitting her mistake.

Meh. I don't read this blog in order to obsess over what Althouse will or won't do, or how she'll vote. I don't really care. Why would I care? She can "But this....on the other hand....except look at the other other hand.." all she wants. What has that to do with me?

I read it because it's interesting, and the comments are usually interesting. Unpredictability is only intriguing or annoying if you have some burning desire to predict. I don't.

With most mistakes that people make, they usually know it's a mistake when they do it, they simply create a justification for dropping their values and logic, for some new weak ones or nothing at all. Some people call it "following your heart". I call it the "fuckit". I see it all the time when people say something like "I know this is wrong or stupid, but fuckit." Now your more uppity ones, they have a reputation and image to maintain, so they they have to come up with something better, usually with a long explanation, but it's still just another "fuckit".

This is how people refuse to leave abuse, either by others or on themselves. It's most primitive form is when someone puts down their beer and says "watch this", but there are many others, some with levels of complexity.

The 2008 election was just a terrible choice to have to make if you were anywhere from center to far right. There was a very unreliable conservative against the most liberal member of congress, with no resume or experience.

The responsible thing would be to vote for the devil we know.

I think Obama is pretty bad, but I also think we got incredibly lucky that he wasn't worse. Imagine if he actually kept his promises. You have to have considered him a shameless liar or an idiot who would be kept under control to safely vote for him, unless you just told yourself: "hey cool, the first black President, and maybe he'll be OK. In other words, "fuckit".

"My regular right-leaning readers keep seeing me as secretly devoted to Obama, no matter what mockery I indulge in. They think I'm just trying to trick them into thinking I've got what I like to call cruel neutrality."

My take on this: it's not that people think you're trying to "trick" anyone, it's that we all told you this before the election, that e.g. his talk was all just BS, and that his lack of any demonstrable competence would result it, well, pretty much what we see. So the reaction is much more, "Oh, so now you finally notice..."

That's understandable and commendable, if you either know her personally or are a longtime commenter here. But I still don't get how who she decides to vote for in the end, for whatever reasons, would be the object of your caring. How can deciding to vote for the "wrong" candidate be harmful to her? I can understand the argument that it's harmful to the country. But is she harming herself? Such that your caring for her would compel you to be concerned over her choice?

Not sure why it's a mystery, Formerly. Surely you wince when you see someone you care about make a mistake. (For the record, I've lost track of how may years I've been commenting here. It's a very long time).

I was actually glad that McCain lost. If you could look to see what was coming down the road, and you really looked at both candidates, the biggest difference between them was the letters placed before their names. So the Dem.s get to own the big shit sandwich a totally Democrat government served up.

That led to the biggest house turn over in history, and is about to lead to another unified government. Only this time WE'LL be in charge.

And when you lib.s start crying about how big and bad the R's are treating you, I want you to sit down, and eat your peas, like Zero told us too. I want you to realize that "elections have consequences, and we won". I want you to sit there and think about the "new tone" in Washington. And I want you to shut the hell up. Because when you were in power, that's what you told us.

I want that to happen but it won't because most conservatives are much nicer than I am. So you'll get to do your crying to the press, and the Rino's will still love you.

But you reap what you sow, and liberals have been sowing hatred for decades. From false charges of racism to mocking a candidates handicapped child, you represent some of the most vile, despicable people on the face of the earth.

I can hear you now AllieOop, and Garage, and Leslyn, etc...but it was you and your party that lets people like Maher, and Van Jones, and Cass Susstein, and just every crazy communist bastard run your party so you can shut the hell up too.

At least the republican have the decency to run misanthropes out of their party. Democrats just celebrate them, and give them a bigger platform to commit atrocities on.

Ps. I hate Romney. He'll do no better than Zero, but he sure as hell can't do worse.

Romney can't even repeal ObamaCare for one thing, even though he said he would do it on Day One. From what I've read all Romney and Ryan want to do is fork over more tax cuts to the wealthy in their budgets plans. That, and more austerity crap that's proving to harm the economy. Romney will need to come up with more than that to win.

Speaking of Paul Ryan, I'm thoroughly enjoying the ball toasting he's taking from the Jesuits. He tossed them Ayn Ran as a sacrificial lamb, and the Jesuits basically told him that it's a good start. Haha.

Pete said...It doesn't matter what Althouse says, it matters what she does. She was supposedly cruelly neutral in the last race but eventually posted a ridiculous entry of how McCain lost her and how perfectly justified she would be to vote for Obama. Since casting that vote, she's made laughable attempts at justifying her vote, never once, to my knowledge, admitting her mistake.

===================Only someone with partisan blinders on would call a vote made after a good deal of thinking before deciding on the matter "a mistake".You make decisions based on the best information available at the time. To my judgment, McCain was a bloodthirsty warmonger that wanted to expand the troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan AND fight new major wars with Iran, Syria, and Libya. He also wanted to send "advisors" to Georgia to fight the Russians.

Add to that McCain's long-time treachery against fellow Republicans. He would have given Pelosi and Reid 90% of what they wanted and Nancy would still be Speaker with a solid Dem majority if McCain had been in office backing her in his usual "bipartisan" way.

No Obamacare, but 5 wars going on.Less for the unions, but McCains big idea was to give 500 billion away to those mansion owners and multiple property real estate speculators that couldn't afford what they bought.

No, it was sort of like how it was back in the day when Nixon was impeached and liberals claimed everyone must really really regret not voting for McGovern a few years earlier.No, voters didn't regret it. There were reasons why McGovern lost in a landslide. No "mistake" acknowledged in their vote for Nixon.

Your vote for Obama in 2008 made no sense, and I assume that this same lack of sense will lead to another vote for Obama in 2012, particularly if you're as largely immune to the damage he causes as I suspect you are.

I care about Althouse. I'd miss this blog if it disappeared or changed very much. I care about politics. I'm predictable. I'm not very informed when it comes to law as practiced by lawyers. All of those reasons bring me here. Predictability is not why I'm here.

Well, if it helps, I'm not left leaning, nor particularly right leaning (though as a classical liberal/libertarian, my sympathies are against the modern Progressive left)... and I'm not at all sure who you'll vote for.

I mean, I suspect it won't be Obama, but I wouldn't bet my car on that.

This post and the comments remind me of the story, maybe true, maybe not, of an actress who caught herself mid-stream discoursing about herself and said, "O my, here I am talking about myself. Let's talk about you. What did you think of my last movie?"

Her strongest bias is not to vote Democratic but to think of herself as an independent thinker. Winner, winner, Clooney dinner is not the proper pander for such independent thinkers. However, Obama will soon be awarding Dylan the Medal of Freedom. There will be a photo of them hugging in the Oval Office. In such a way will Barack's personable smile play upon her heart like the opening chords to a Dylan song. Lay, lady, lay

@Callahan--No, his successes at Bain and elsewhere don't give us any basis for inferring competence.

Right, because running a capital firm means the EXACT same thing as running the U.S. Government.

Now Santorum, there's one competent mofo.

I voted for whom I thought was the most conservative of the choices. We can argue that one way or another until the cows come home. I neve sadi ANYTHING about Santorum's being more or less competent than Obama or Romney. So burn that strawman.

William predicted: There will be a photo of them [Dylan and Obama] hugging in the Oval Office. In such a way will Barack's personable smile play upon her heart like the opening chords to a Dylan song. Lay, lady, lay

She will prominently display it along side this photo. So goes the vote.

You received several replies, including mine that he was promising to offer waivers from Obamacare to all 50 states on DAY ONE. Those were statements of fact about what Romney was "offering to voters", not "arguments".

@12:33 you said: Romney can't even repeal ObamaCare for one thing...

That constitutes an argument that Romney's promised action is infeasible.

I then pointed out that an executive order granting waivers is quite feasible, offering innumerable examples from the current administration.

Your reply to that-- "I'm not making an argument"--would be funny if it weren't so sad.

This right-leaning reader has never seen you as secretly devoted to Obama, and I'd be surprised if you voted for him again.

Back in 2008, I am sorry to say, you were had. You were hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray and run amok! Obama invited voters to suspect he secretly agreed with them by speaking in generalities and at the abstract level. You knew that Obama was asking voters to project their views onto him, but, when forced to make a decision, you guessed that Obama was a politician who would govern moderately.

Obama has since pushed immoderate legislation, ignored the impending debt crisis, and demagogued anything and everything along the way. There is, therefore, very little left for him to sell you---a left-leaning moderate who wants good government more than democrats in control of government---except fear of boring Mitt Romney. And that's not enough.

If by "argument," making a coherent statement supported by facts and reason, then Garage is correct. He is not making an argument.

You said unequivocally Romney could just grant a 50 state waiver. I said I wasn't so sure. You pointed to a list of temporary waivers granted to entities, not states, and who must comply with numerous laws located in the ACA itself to get those waivers. Whioch are temporary and do not include the individual mandate.

You said unequivocally Romney could just grant a 50 state waiver. I said I wasn't so sure. You pointed to a list of temporary waivers granted to entities, not states, and who must comply with numerous laws located in the ACA itself to get those waivers. Whioch are temporary and do not include the individual mandate.

I said nothing of the kind. I have no opinion on whether the President can legally grant waivers to entities other than his campaign supporters under the Orwellian named ACA. As for what another commenter has stated, and having read the link you provided, I would say that the "requirements for the Sec'y of HHS to allow the waiver are easily met, as any review by a court would be under an "abuse of discretion" standard, and that rarely leads to a reversal. As the link notes, the administration has done largely the same thing for NCLB, with no resistance.

"In fulfilment of my pledge to end the [cough] - Affordable Care Act on Day 1 of my Presidency, I invite all citizens to send their request for a waiver, as specificed under paragraph {insert relevant section} of the [cough, cough] - Affordable Care Act, to me, President Mitt Romney, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, D.C.

A process that seems to produce random outputs when repeated, but is not random. The difference is due to minute variations of the inputs that ultimately cause changes in the outputs. The classic chaotic system example is the theoretical "Butterfly Effect," in which the wings of a butterfly cause a variation in the weather hundreds of miles away. The more nuances are captured, the more chaotic a system may appear, because those exact same input conditions are not repeated the next time.

It is very difficult to predict the output of a chaotic system. Many independent voters are like chaotic systems in the way they decide how to vote. Understanding their shallow and poorly informed thought processes is irritating, depressing, and a waste of time.

What is really cool is that these butterfly voters tend to decide who gets to be president.

Oh, I don't care who you vote for. It doesn't matter who you vote for. That's what I like about you...the fact that it doesn't really matter, in the end, who you vote for. The fun is watching you pretend like you're still undecided about Obama and Romney (or Obama and McCain, or Bush and Kerry), acting like it matters. Acting like you even care! There's an art to trolling your own commenters, and you've mastered it.

What I do care about is the predictability of some of your methods. You've been parsing/mocking Obama campaign emails for years and I feel like I've read that post from earlier today a dozen times.

I think you think you're engaging in "cruel neutrality," but you work at a university that is pretty extremely liberal, even by the standards of academia, and you live in a city that is so far to the extreme left wing that it sometimes to be from an alternate reality. So I can see how you might regard yourself as right of center when in fact you're still left of center, and not by just a teensy weensy bit.

I don't think you're devoted to Obama, but I suspect that you'll find some silly excuse to vote for him next November.

Ann has posted some pretty disgusting and daring things about 'O' especially in light of the Strassel article in the WSJ. I'd prefer him to favor the 'farewell intercourse' law. I could see voting for him on foreign policy grounds and in retrospect I prefer him to the choice of McCain last time. I agree with Ann in retrospect on the 'principled conservative' perspective. With McCain, you'd have seen choices not based on the 'right way or the wrong way but the Army way' to use the old saying which would have been demoralizing.

Althouse isn't going to vote for Obama, for much the same reason she voted for him last time. Things are broken and need to be fixed. More of the same isn't going to get it done. That's just as true now as it was four years ago. She's not inconsistent at all.

Romney seems competent in a way McCain didn't and Obama doesn't and that will be the basis for the Althouse post of why she voted for Romney.

Also, all this "War on Women," stuff seems to be created solely to irritate Althouse. She loves deconstructing narratives, and that's all the Democrats have to offer this time.

As I read many of the same sources as Althouse/Meade, of late I found I can predict which stories will make the blogs and which ones will not: A Flight from Conversation will top "A Dangerous Mind;" The many follies of the right will be dropped in favor of savoring the dog eating habits of the left. This blog has a clear conservative bent, mixed with layers of a smug and scolding tone that enjoys its outsider status in a liberal town,and that is why I scan it a few times a week.

Cracky, you site is down, too bad because I really wanted your analysis on the Prof. I'm guessing it reads as follows: if you had met her back in your pimping days (or rather Pimpin' Cracky moved back 20-25(?) years to her college days), you would have turned her out overnight and she would have become your top earner, striking a blow against The Man with every trick.

R/V, I know Voltaire, who is Roesch? I assume you don't mean the Nazi war criminal or the used car dealer.